Friday, October 8, 2010

Talk About Math: Which is better?

Constructive participation in this discussion will earn a student 2 Brownie Points.

I wanted to ask the question, which is a "better" form of argument, inductive reasoning or deductive reasoning?

By way of review, inductive reasoning is the reasoning based on experience and experiement, while deductive is based on logical steps forming an arugment.  For example a research scientist tends to use inductive (he tries things) while a theoretical scientist uses deductive (he writes things down on the white board to see what he can calculate and predict).

I am inviting students to leave a comment saying which one they think is the "Better" of the two and to provide some kind of explanation of why they trust that kind of reasoning more than the other.  Parents are also encouraged to leave a comment (which can earn 1 additional BP for their student).

Dr. Sheldon Cooper (theoretical scientist) and Penny.
Photo:  Warner Bros TV



6 comments:

  1. inductive reasoning would be a better arguement because it has concrete facts to back up its reasoning unlike deductive reasoning when use come up with logical steps.

    Steven 1st hour

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  2. Though that begs the question, Steve: Are our observations really "concrete facts"? Inductive reasoning is based on patterns of observations. What if we don't have enough observations to make a good conclusion? Or we are watching the wrong things?

    My experiences with girls in HS were radically different than later in life.....

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  3. haha you have a good point but atleast in inductive reasoning you are actually testing something numerous times and expiriences instead of using prior knowledge and logical thinking and yes the problem of watching the wrong things come up when testing but you might catch your mistake or not.

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  4. And again we all are shocked and awed by Anonymous's argument and reasoning....

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